The so-called “lost-foam” casting process is a well known method for producing metal castings wherein a fugitive, pyrolizable, polymeric, foam pattern is covered with a thin, gas-permeable, ceramic coating, and embedded in an unbonded sand mold to form a mold cavity within the sand. Molten metal (e.g. iron or aluminum inter alia) is then introduced into the mold to pyrolize, and displace the pattern with molten metal. Gaseous and liquid pyrolysis products escape through the gas-permeable, ceramic coating into the interstices between the unbonded sand particles. Typical fugitive polymeric foam patterns comprise expanded polystyrene foam (EPS), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), and certain copolymers. The molten metal may be either gravity-cast (i.e. melt is poured from an overhead ladle or furnace), or countergravity-cast (i.e. melt is forced, e.g. by vacuum or low pressure, upwardly into the mold from an underlying vessel).
In gravity-cast lost-foam processes, the hydraulic head of the melt is the driving force for filling the mold cavity with melt. Gravity-cast lost-foam processes are known that (1) top-fill the mold cavity by pouring the melt into a basin overlying the pattern so that the melt enters the mold cavity through a gating system comprising one or more gates located above the pattern, or (2) bottom-fill the mold cavity by pouring the melt into a vertical sprue that lies adjacent the pattern and extends from above the mold cavity to the bottom of the mold cavity for filling the mold cavity from beneath through a gating system having one or more gates located beneath the pattern. Heretofore, the sprues have been formed (1) from porous-ceramic-coated fugitive foams like that used for the patterns, or (2) from porous ceramic shells like those described in copending US Patent application U.S. Ser. No. 10/132,878 filed Apr. 25, 2002, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. After cooling, the metal left in the sprue (hereafter “sprue-metal”) and gating system are cut from the casting and recycled. In either case, the sprue-metal is covered with a layer of ceramic that must be removed from the sprue-metal before the sprue-metal can be remelted and reused.